The good? I received 25 rejections, which means I sent stories out almost twice as many times as last year, with helpful feedback to boot as well as one rewrite request (which I intend to get to as soon as this moving business is behind us).

I can’t say I’ve made any resolutions for the new year. I’ll be happy if I can make it through the first couple of months without ripping my hair out. I will keep writing, and reading, and saving. And what needs to get done will get done. Maybe, if there’s time, I’ll make peace with my demons.

A widower goes for a stroll through Old Town and stumbles across something more bizarre than himself.

This story first appeared in Shock Totem, issue #3 (January 2011) and was on the long list of honorable mentions for editor Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year.

My short story, “Duval Street,” is now available for free at Smashwords in a variety of formats. If you’re feeling generous, you can also get a copy from Amazon for 99 cents. (Is that too high for something less than a couple thousand words? Will anyone bother when it’s free elsewhere? Will Amazon eventually match the price? Let’s find out!) If you do splurge on it, consider leaving a review — be honest! — and I’ll send you cookies and happy cat pictures.

Don’t forget, you can always find it in the third issue of Shock Totem alongside stories by Amanda C. Davis, Aaron Polson, John Skipp, and more. Support them. They’re good people.

I plugged in fragments of all of my finished stories, including fanfics, as well as four chapters of The Novel and a couple of WIPs. Apparently, I write most like Stephen King (4), David Foster Wallace (4), Chuck Palahniuk (2), Oscar Wilde (2), Margaret Mitchell (2), and William Gibson (2).

Yup.

There’s also some Asimov, Dickens, Anne Rice, Douglas Adams, Rudyard Kipling, Atwood, and Nabokov peppered in there.

I can dig that.

© Wicked Sushi

Old Wife’s Tail

by Mekenzie Larsen

Whiskers tickled his chin. A weight on his chest, no lighter than a bowling ball, shifted languidly from one rib to the other. His wrists bled. His ankles were bruised. His foggy eyes rolled in their sockets till they landed on hers, sharp blue and full of poison.

He whimpered, waiting for the next strike. It didn’t take long. A practiced set of crimson-stained claws flashed across his cheek, his nose, his lips. “Why?” He could hear the others, light feet pacing the room, flooding the stairwell. Some had wandered into the basement in search of smaller prey. “Why do you do this?” He wept, salt burning a trail from his eyes to the hair at his temples. She drew closer, smiling.

“It’s not your breath we want,” she hissed. “It’s your tears.”

© Zach Den Adel

• Stewie, the world’s longest cat, passed away at at the age eight. He was 48.5 inches from toe to tail, and his tail measured 16.34 inches. Wow.
• After seven days, the little boy held hostage in a bunker in Alabama has been freed and his kidnapper killed. The local children called Jimmy Lee Dykes — who believed the government and the mafia were controlling the dog races he bet on — “the scoop man.”
• Shooter Boys and At-Risk Girls, an essay by Molly Crabapple on the culture surrounding school shootings.
• Have you caught up on the Applebee’s scandal yet? Here’s a breakdown with photos.
• I’m still making my way through Moby Dick, and this annotated version has been especially useful.
• This handy list by Mary Robinette Kowal of every word used by Jane Austen, all 14,793 of them, is a great starting point for anyone writing historical fiction. Bonus Mary: How to make entrails!
• Looking for the motivation to write? Written? Kitten! to the rescue.
• Duotrope alternatives, in case you’re still looking: Dark Markets, Bloody Bookish, and Horror Tree for horror writers, and The Grinder for stats and tracking. Bloody Bookish in particular lets you easily add deadlines to your Google calendar.
• Chuck Wendig’s 25 thoughts on book piracy.
• More than $60,000 has been pledged to John Scalzi’s Counteract a Bigot drive. In return, Scalzi commissioned this brilliant piece of art. Shirts may be forthcoming.
• King Richard III’s body has been found beneath a parking lot in Leicester.
• The 256-year-old man, Li Ching-Yuen. He supposedly lived on rice, herbs, and wine and said the secret to longevity was to “keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog.” His age is disputed; Ching-Yuen himself said he was 197. Do you believe it?
• Hey, Amazon? No.